Ruddock may check out Afghan dangers

Mr Ruddock said the Afghan interim government claimed the country was safe and secure for Afghanis to return.

The minister, however, would not say if he agreed.

"I simply assert what advice I have received from the international community", he told reporters in Sydney.

"It is quite possible that I will be in Afghanistan myself to make some of those assessments and not in the so distant future. ");document.write("

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Mr Ruddock's comments come after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) yesterday handed down its decision on the refugee status of 529 asylum seekers on Nauru, 301 of whom were rescued at sea last year by the Norwegian ship MS Tampa.

Only seven of the 292 Afghani asylum seekers on Nauru who had their claims processed were declared refugees.

The UNHCR found 126 of the 201 asylum seekers of Iraqi origin detained on Nauru were refugees and declared another 14 from other origins should be granted refugee status.

Mr Ruddock today said there would still be physical dangers to the Afghan asylum seekers if they returned home, but it was not generally unsafe.

"There are physical dangers to people in Afghanistan from possible land mine placements," he said.

"There is a general degradation of infrastructure and what one would take for granted as the sort of standards that we would regard as being acceptable for living our daily lives."

However, this was no different to the situation faced by people returning to Kosovo, Cambodia or Rwanda, he said.

"The idea that Afghanistan for the generality of Afghans is unsafe is untrue," he said.

The UNHCR earlier said it had asked countries not to return Afghans on an involuntary basis until June at the earliest, at which time the UNHCR would review the situation on the ground.

Mr Ruddock today would not comment on whether the Afghan asylum seekers in Nauru who had been rejected for refugee status would remain there until June.

"All I would say is that I will be having further discussions in relation to these matters over the course of the next month," he said.

"Those discussions will take me to other countries that may be involved in resettlement.

"They will also take me to those countries to which we are working to return people who are not refugees."

He also restated that some asylum seekers would be forced to pay the cost of their detention in Australia.

"Those that have been detained under the Migration Act may well, having been unlawful in Australia and removed from Australia, have incurred detention costs," he said.

"(The costs) would be a charge and would expect to be met before they might at any future time be granted a visa to come to Australia."

But charges may not apply to asylum seekers held in detention overseas, he said.